Avail Me Unto Life Everlasting
by also known as LuLu
Summary: What is the source of salvation? (contains religious imagery)


_Disclaimer_: Don't own it.  
  
_Author's Notes (Part 1)_: When I write in the middle of the night, it comes out like this. Probably the strangest thing I've ever written. In accordance to the movie timeline, this occurs before the "Rooftop" scene.  
  


_Avail Me Unto Life Everlasting_  


  
You know now that you are doing this to for yourself, and when it comes down to it, you really don't give a damn about them. It's simple, really, you think as the night blankets you. You should have known it all along.  
  
You know the equations, the simple truths, the cause and effect relationships of life that led you to this conclusion. The essence of human nature is conflict. Conflict equals attention. Attention equals the emergence of your name as a topic of common conversation. This equals fame. Fame equals money. And money, when combined with a well-timed instance of good fortune, equals escape.  
  
Escape. This time, it will be permanent.   
  
The carefully detailed illustration of your mind is waiting for you, where the colors exist in pure, vivid hues instead of being dulled by the constant undercurrents of gray as they are here. You know that an endless expanse of sky exists beyond the city, underneath a brilliant orb of solid gold, where the night is enhanced by thousands of tiny diamonds as opposed to being subdued by thick smoke. You know many things about the world outside this hellhole town, this breeding ground of vice, just as you know that they, the sinners and the liars and the false prophets, have always been keeping you from finding the path to it.  
  
You blame them and don't give a damn about their fate because they never gave a damn about you and yours. The entire time, they wanted to deter you by putting you in positions of power, waiting for you to fall down and become broken. But they forgot that you always refused to break under them. In your eyes even now, they are criminals who cannot change under any circumstances, and for a while, they corrupted you. You liked being corrupted, too. Until you realized that there could be salvation for you, yes, even for one like you.  
  
You realized it when you saw her, the one who shines like the Blessed Virgin when she assumed her position as Queen of Heaven.  
  
You think that maybe, just maybe, you could love her, and that ideal, combined with the paradise you know exists outside this city, could be the thing that saves you. But these revelations never used to be this easy for you.  
  
You know that there is a difference between boys and girls, but you could never decide which appealed to you more, and that is what damned you for so long. Girls have the ideals of society on their side, allowing them to be beautiful and mysterious and aloof and untouchable, which is really what you hated most about it back when you were damned. Boys are more carnal, more attentive to the tangible, knowing that the society girls will not let them do the dirty things they do to the whores, but they find a way to do it anyway, watching what they can make these girls do to them with ravenous eyes and an oblivious, slack jawed ecstasy. They know lust and return it readily, realizing how to manipulate it to their favor, which is what you liked about them. This, of course, was all before you saw her and realized how one presence could so quickly change the heart and eliminate the evil choice. You realized everything that she could be.  
  
You now know that you will put everything into her, everything you now know and now pray for, your secluded dreams of the glory beyond the horizon.  
  
But despite everything you know already, you do not know just yet what the result will be. You are uncertain if she will fail you, even in her innocence; you do not know if suddenly someone or something, one of the dirty sinners who does not believe in God Almighty, will pull you back. However, you know certainly and immediately that you have left the sin behind forever as you see the sun rise, the orange and yellow glow giving you the baptism of fire you have been waiting all night for.  
  
On the stairs outside her bedroom, you see the morning sun shine around her head like a delicate halo, illuminating her face like a stained glass window, and now, because of her, you know for sure.  
  
You know that there is truth in the promise of salvation, and that there will be room for you outside of this city, at the gates of Heaven.  
  
  
_Author's Notes (Part 2)_: The title comes from my edit of a translation of the Blessing of the Host from the original Latin Mass (if it matters to any of you, I'm Catholic and found the translations on the Internet). Jack's got a strange sort of overbearing/corrupt Jesus complex, or, if it's not that, a seriously extreme case of self-righteousness and an unnatural view of his surroundings, and though I'm not sure where it came from, with him, it can work. And since you've made it this far, please leave me a review and tell me what you think -- good, bad, indifferent, whatever; it's all appreciated greatly. 


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